Industry Expert / Executive Interview Exploring Career Paths and Industry Trends

Interview with Percy Bhesania

An expert that I decided to interview within the IT industry is Percy Bhesania, a Project Manager, Dynamics GP consultant, and expert at Kompass Intergrated Solutions Inc. located in Mountain View, California. Percy has been a Dynamics GP Consultant with more than 25 years of experience. Starting off as a full-time employee within an IT services firm, he continued for 10 years until he decided to create his own company along with individuals that he knew from networking in previous organizations. Percy started doing independent consultancy and began working in IT services for various companies, helping them with their Business Applications through ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). One of the companies that he has worked for is Culinary International, LLC, where he played a key role in implementing Microsoft Dynamics GP solutions to enhance financial management and streamline supply chain operations for a food manufacturing company. He has also worked at other companies such as Envision Peripheral Inc, Alere Inc, and Hyperion Inc. His ambition and prowess in working as an independent consultant within many companies made him stand out to me. The reason I selected this person as the expert to interview was due to his extensive experiences within the IT field and his knowledge within many unrelated industries. 

Surprisingly, Percy has had many roles within the field of IT from being a Project Manager, Dynamics GP consultant, and Business Analyst. He provided some professional insights into his work by discussing the potential and importance of Microsoft Dynamics GP and Dynamics 365 Business Central within medium-sized enterprises. Mentioning that many of these companies that he works for all function through these implementations to operate their financials, payroll, customer relations, and supply chain management. It made me realize how significant his work is within these industries. Many of the programming languages he utilizes daily is SQL, Java and C#. He had mentioned the importance of SQL and NoSQL, as they are very reliable in enabling organizations to maintain the functionality of their applications and these languages play a key role in ERP systems. Some advice he gave during this part of the discussion was to begin getting familiar with Tableau and as of now Dynamics 365 Business Central since Microsoft Dynamics GP is becoming an outdated legacy software.  

Key takeaways from this discussion were about his challenges within the industry as an independent consultant. Percy describes the challenges he faces, particularly the constant need to find new business opportunities for himself. He addresses having to actively search for these new opportunities through LinkedIn and connections he has had through previous organizations. It really showed how much networking can get you within the industry and how much it can enhance your career path. He continues to highlight other challenges he faces such as focusing on delivering services while overseeing other large projects, collecting money from the companies for these services, and learning about new technologies in a professional setting. There are many growing technical challenges he faces such as getting familiar with modern cloud computing tools like Dynamics 365 Business Central. With growing aspects of cloud computing and AI he has mentioned getting familiar with these tools as they are essential in the modern-day enterprise industries.  

Another key takeaway from this discussion was when he was asked to give advice for aspiring students entering this industry of independent IT consultancy. His advice was to pursue a master's degree in the current climate of IT and Software Engineering, his reasoning being that many companies are eyeballing these credentials considerably more than a bachelors. In addition, one must begin building a large portfolio of projects. He says anything that you can produce will be essential in attracting potential employers. Currently, Percy holds a master's in engineering from Purdue University, noting that this piece of paper has provided him with leading qualifications over other individuals, highlighting its importance. He also addresses to explore various ways to network with people, such as finding diverse groups of individuals through networking apps like LinkedIn and tech conferences. Lastly, he mentions to always keep up with your work and never to slack off; “everything you do must come with great responsibility and honesty”. 

This experience was very eye opening and has profoundly influenced my understanding of the IT industry, especially through the perspective of an independent consultant worker. This interview has shown me the meaningfulness of networking and having precise objectives to achieve. It taught me that independent consultant can be a tough business, since you must actively explore organizations and look for your own businesses, though at the end it becomes truly beneficial and a worthwhile investment because you will get to network with diverse people in various organizations. It also gave me an understanding of how much technology is changing in this industry as many of the older software are getting outclassed by cloud computing and GenAI. I would clearly need to keep up with the new technological trends. The interview also gave me insights on the medium-sized enterprises such as food processing companies, manufacturing, healthcare, and retail organizations and their utilization of Microsoft Dynamics GP systems. These systems provide essential functionality to the company bringing in together finances, technology, customer relationships and efficiency across a multitude of departments within an organization.  

 Applying all the knowledge I have learned throughout this discussion I will certainly pursue a master's degree in computer science or data science. I will connect with individuals across my academic career and outside of it. It really has sealed the deal about networking and how much of an influence it can play within the professional working environment. Lastly, developing a significant portfolio will be essential in my career. Touching up on programming languages such as Java, C# and SQL will be of most importance while in school. I have actually learned a great deal through this assignment, I was glad to be able to take part in it; Hoping to have more of these in the near future.